The National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), launched in Rajasthan's tribal district of Banswara, aims to create self-help groups among the estimated 7 crore below-poverty-line families in rural areas and enhance their livelihood options through access to easy loans, capital grant and skills training.

The self-help groups will stress on women participation and offer them financial support in their entrepreneurial ventures.

"Today we have around 50 lakh self-help groups with 10-15 members which are helping rural women empower themselvesa¦this scheme is yet another initiative to further our focus on the poor, particularly women," said Gandhi, who is also the chairperson of the National Advisory Council.

The scheme will provide a subsidy of 20,000 per capita and up to 2.5 lakh for a village self-help group. In the current financial year, the government aims to grant 3,000 crore to self-help groups.

The government will use 15% of the scheme's allocation to train rural youth and get them jobs in collaboration with private companies in sectors like textiles, computer and hardware services, hospitality and infrastructure.

It will also give an interest subsidy to provide loans to households at 7 %. The ventures will get guidance and support from the government for six to seven years.

In the long term, NRLM aims to offer sustainable livelihood to households that rely on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the government's flagship jobs scheme introduced in 2005.

"NRLM will have special focus on the poorest households that are dependent on MGNREGA. These families will be supported to broaden their livelihoods through asset creation and skill acquisition," said BK Sinha, secretary in the ministry of rural development.

The scheme's emphasis on creation of strong institutional structures at the village level will set it apart from the other flagship schemes of the government.

"The unique feature of the programme is that it is by the rural poor, for the rural poor and of the people," said T Vijay Kumar, joint secretary heading the mission.

The absence of such institutions has prevented demand-driven schemes like MGNREGA and Bharat Nirman from having optimum impact.

"It had been felt that there is dearth of self-help groups in existing programmes. NRLM will be different in that sense and give more social and financial power to the rural poor," Kumar said.

Several states like Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh have successfully implemented the model and other state governments ate likely to replicate it.